ET us now return to England and visit the British Museum in London. Passing in at the main entrance and turning to the right we shall soon find ourselves in the Manuscript Room. There are many cases full of all sorts of ancient books, written on parchment of different kinds and ages. Quite a number of them are copies of the Bible. Some are lives of saints and others are on various subjects.

      You cannot but notice the labor and skill and devotion with which many of them have been prepared. Pages of beautiful illustrations, numbers of elaborately decorated initials can be seen, looking as fresh as if recently done, though many of them are hundreds of years old.

      Our concern now, however, is not with any of these. We are going to see the Alexandrian Manuscript,--so called from having once formed part of [27] the library at Alexandria. This is the third oldest Bible in the world. It belongs to England, and is not likely to be lightly parted with. It is in four volumes, one of which you will find at the far end of the MS. room in a case marked F. If you speak to the Curator, he will tell you that large numbers of visitors come to see this famous old Bible.

      You will notice that it also is the uncial form of letters, and has two columns on a page. In the same case will also be found photographs of one of the pages of each the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts. You will remember that the Vatican Bible has three columns on a page, and the Sinaitic Bible four columns on a page. This manuscript was probably written about the middle of the fifth century. It is written on very thin vellum, and has been in the possession of England since it was presented to King Charles I. in 1628 by Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople.

      It will thus be seen that it is the youngest of the three old Bibles we have noticed. It contains both the Old and New Testaments, though it is not quite perfect. It is marvelous to find a written document of such great age so perfect as this is. The New Testament seems to have suffered more than the Old. Only

from the Old Testament; but the new has lost more. [28]

CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. (St. Luke xii. 54-xiii. 4)--Fifth century. (British Museum, Royal MS. r. D. v-viii.)       The Bible in Greek, written in uncial letters in the fifth century. The text is arranged in two columns to a page. It once belonged to the Patriarchal Chamber of Alexandria (whence its name), and was probably carried away by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Alexandria, who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 1621. Cyril sent it, as a present to King Charles the First in 1628. It came into the possession of the British Museum with the rest of the Royal MSS. [29]

Twenty-five leaves have gone from the Gospel by Matthew, two from the Gospel by John, and three from Corinthians.

      We have now seen these three remarkable manuscripts all written, say 1500 years ago. It is not possible to estimate their value to Bible students. They carry us back at once to remote ages, and help very considerably in showing us where our Bible came from. As we look at them we are at once put in touch with men who lived at the beginning of the fourth century. Though in our study of ancient versions of the Scriptures we shall get much nearer to the Apostles and to our Lord than these three old Greek manuscripts carry us, we still have in them a rich boon. They link us with the Christian fathers of the early centuries, and clearly show that their Scriptures and ours are the same.

      It is quite worthy of note that the scholarly men who in the reign of King James made our Authorized English Bible, had no access to these three valuable old documents. The Vatican manuscript was at Rome, and the Pope of that day was not the man to let Protestants have the use of this book. The Sinaitic manuscript was buried in the convent at Sinai, and its existence was not known to the Company of Revisers. And the Alexandrian manuscript [30] was received in England about seventeen years after the authorized revisers had done their work. The scholars who have prepared our excellent Revised Bible were fortunate. All these three old manuscripts were at their disposal.

      If this chapter is not already tedious let us examine at least one other ancient manuscript, which is in the Library at Paris. It is called the Codex of Ephraem. It is believed to be nearly as old as the Alexandrian manuscript, if not a little older. It was brought from the East to Florence in the sixteenth century, and in the middle of that same century reached Paris.

      At first sight it does not seem to be of much value, for its writing is in the cursive style and is comparatively modern. But as we will look at it a little more carefully we will see that under the modern

EPHRAEM (PORTION OF 1. TIM., iii. 16).

writing there are traces of writing in the uncial or [31] ancient style. The parchment is doubly written upon. This kind of manuscript is called a Palimpsest, which means written twice. There are many documents of this kind. It would seem, in order to save cost of parchment, the writers would rub out as well as they could the first writing, and then use the sheets for writing other matter upon. It will at once be obvious that the ancient rubbed-out writing must in many cases have been far more valuable than the second or more modern writing. This was particularly so with the Codex of Ephraem, as the next few lines will show.

      The story of this precious manuscript is briefly this. It seems that about the twelfth century some one took this parchment and scraped and rubbed it to clear out the old writing, in order to make it fit for use again. When this was done the skins were used to write on them some discourses of Ephraem, a Syrian father of the fourth century, not one-thousandth part as valuable as the writing which had first been on the parchment. The old writing had not been completely rubbed out. Attention was drawn to it a long time ago, and efforts were made to read the faint writing. About sixty years ago chemicals were applied to the manuscript. The effect of this application was twofold; it much stained and spoiled [32]

HEBREW MS. (Exod. xx. 1-5)--Written earlier than A. D. 916. (British Museum, Add. MS. 4445.)       Portions of the Pentateuch. The text is arranged in two columns to the page, and is accompanied by the Massorah Magna and Parva.

the vellum, but it revived a good part of the old uncial writings, and it was found to contain considerable portions of the Old Testament, and fragments of each book of the New Testament.

      Though we have only examined four of these ancient manuscripts, there are large numbers of others beside. It is stated that in the uncial style there are 127 and in the cursive style 1,463. As time goes on greater attention will be paid to many of these, and no doubt we shall get much additional light upon the Bible as the result of their study.¹

      The conclusion to which we are brought by the [33] examination of these old Bibles is, that our Bible was in existence when these books were written. Our New Testament, therefore, must have come from some earlier source. Let us take our next step. [34]

[HWGI 27-34]